The sun had only just cleared the eastern ridge. Shadows stretched long across the grass, though everyone knew it would climb fast. The Trials would run until noon, and already Rem felt the pressure of that imagined zenith pressing on him.
He sat halfway down the slope, knees drawn close. Told himself he’d rather be anywhere else—but part of him leaned forward anyway, pulse quickening.
Noah dropped beside him, drumming fingers against his thigh. “Man, feels like we’re about to get drafted or something.” His grin wobbled, eyes darting everywhere, never still. The new uniform — coal-dark with a line of bronze at the seams — fit him too neatly, like it belonged to someone older, steadier.
Eva, a row below, folded her arms and tilted her chin. “If you’re scared, you can still go home.”
Mara smoothed her braid over one shoulder, voice calm but clipped. “Ignore her. The Trials aren’t about bravado. They’re about poise.”
Rem tugged at his collar. “Are these uniforms really necessary? We look like junior UOW officers.”
Noah elbowed him, nodding toward Lotte. “It’s not all bad.”
Rem followed his gaze. Lotte stood a few rows down, sunlight catching the bronze seams of her coat. The fit was perfect—precise, confident, like she already belonged here. He looked away before Noah could smirk.
Lars leaned forward from the next row, solid as stone. “Trials are simple. One step, then another. That’s all any of us can do.”
“Yeah?” Bram barked, slapping his knee hard enough to echo. “Some of us came to things, not take a stroll. That doesn’t win fights.”
Finn pushed his glasses up with one finger. “Actually, it might. The metrics reward precision and forward progress, not just—”
Bram groaned loud enough to turn heads.
The chatter cut off as Headmaster Ordan strode onto the stage. He wore the graphite gray of the Union, bronze piping gleaming at the seams. Boots cracked sharp against stone, the sound echoing like a drumbeat. His hair was iron-straight, combed back to a severe line, and when he raised his voice it filled the amphitheater as if the mountains themselves were listening.
“Students of Zwolle,” Ordan called, arms outstretched, “today you stand at the threshold of destiny. You have touched the glyphs, braved your first challenges, claimed your first levels. These were but the opening steps. Now comes the proving ground.” His hand cut through the air. “Now come to the Trials!”
The terraces answered with a roar. Cheers. Gasps. The sudden rush of a thousand voices. Rem felt the sound in his ribs, his pulse rising with it.
“You have been chosen,” Ordan pressed on, voice steady as a march. “Not because you are strong already, but because you are behind. On Union worlds, children of six have already taken their first levels. By adolescence, many stand at ten. While you slept, they ran. While Earth dreamed of its past, the Union built its future. You are late to the race.”
He paused, letting the silence stretch until the air itself seemed to tighten. Then his voice rang out again, fierce and triumphant.
“But the Union does not abandon its children. You have been given the chance to catch them. More than that—surpass them. The Trials are timed. Completion is nothing. Only those who seize each moment, who burn through every obstacle, who prove themselves swift and cunning, will be rewarded. And the rewards are not scraps or favors. No. The fastest will be given experience itself. Power, poured into your very being.”
A wave of sound crashed back at him—applause, chants, the thundering of feet against stone. Ordan let it crest, then raised his hand for quiet, his gaze sweeping the rows like a drawn blade.
“Do not mistake this for a game. Each level costs more than the last. By the time you crawl toward one hundred, years will stretch into decades. And what good is immortality if you reach it bent and frail? What are endless years when vigor has fled your body and youth has abandoned your spirit? The Union offers you more. Here, now, you may grasp your future while you are still strong enough to live it.”
He struck his chest with a closed fist, the bronze piping flashing in the morning light. “So rise, students. Rise to your Trials. Run as if eternity itself is waiting—because it is!”
The amphitheater erupted, cheers rolling like a storm. Noah muttered a curse, his shoulders tight. Eva’s eyes gleamed, sharp and hungry. Mara’s lips curved faintly, already calculating. Bram slammed his fists together, grinning. Lars nodded with quiet acceptance. Finn’s eyes stayed glued to his screen, words slipping out in hushed calculation.
For a moment Rem hunched lower, staring at his dust-scuffed boots. His pulse pounded. The Headmaster’s words struck like sparks against dry kindling. A race. A chance to catch and surpass. He rocked up to his feet with the others. He did want to grow, to advance. But something felt off.
Eva glanced back, her gaze like a drawn blade. “Ranked by class, right? Then I just have to be faster than you.”
“Ha! Good luck keeping up,” Bram barked.
“They just posted the schedule,” Finn murmured, eyes never leaving the screen. “One hour, give or take.”
The amphitheater buzzed as students surged toward the gates. Rem noted Thames and his crew pushing their way forward, laughing, their swagger pulling eyes after them.
When his friends left for the trial grounds, Rem stayed behind a minute, puzzling over what was bothering him. The cheers still echoed across the stone, but something in them rang hollow.
An hour later the line at the Arch snaked across the courtyard, morning light pooling gold against the stone. A few leaves clung stubbornly to branches overhead, others spiraled down to scatter across the waiting students’ boots. The air was crisp enough to sting the nose.
Rem trailed near the back, Noah a few places ahead, shifting from foot to foot. A voice behind him caught his ear—someone mentioning his name, Zelfstyrt, in a quick comment about the leaderboard. He didn’t turn, just filed it away. Later, he’d check the public boards and see what they were talking about.
“You’ll do fine,” Rem called up to Noah, voice flat.
Unauthorized use of content: if you find this story on Amazon, report the violation.
Noah gave him a shaky smile, then looked away.
Rem nodded, suppressing a smile of his own.
He didn’t want to be seen as a loser. He wanted to advance. Immortality was still far off, so it didn’t weigh on his choice. What he wanted was power. And if he was honest, he enjoyed the feeling of growing stronger. Part of him even wanted to prove he was the best. He was more like Eva than Noah, in that way.
It took him a short walk along the canal and an argument with himself to see things clearly. The Union was asking them to rush. To sprint through knowledge and strength as if it were only a race. For him, that would mean leaving power behind. In just a level and a half he had learned so much. That knowledge was real strength. Speeding through would waste it.
The Arch shimmered, white stone edged in light. One by one students stepped forward and vanished.
His turn came.
[SYSTEM INTERFACE — LOCATION MENU]
Available Destinations:
Storage Locker (Ref: LOC-ST/001)
Challenge Two — Passes Remaining: 5 (Ref: CH-002/DAILY)
Trial One (Ref: LOC-TR/001)
He chose.
[SYSTEM NOTICE — TRIAL INITIATION]
Location: Trial One
Condition: Timed
Objective: Construct shelter before solar apex
Compliance Reference: Challenge Directive §3.1
The prompt hung before him, letters too bright. Rem shaded his eyes, scanning the horizon. Nothing but sand and sky. He could compete. He could run, scramble, push himself for Ordan’s promise of instant power. His father would’ve told him to.
But the words still rang in his skull: burn through every obstacle, seize each moment, faster, faster.
He saw himself doing it — breath tearing, strength spent, finishing just to say he had. His father’s voice again, proud, distant.
His hand hovered. The crowd’s roar still reached him from beyond the Arch — a living reminder of the race he was stepping out of. The weight of that shame pressed down hard, familiar as gravity.
He swallowed. His fingers trembled once. Then steadied.
If he sprinted blind, he would never know the cost of that recklessness.
He exhaled, almost a flinch.
He turned back to the glyph plate.
[SYSTEM INTERFACE — LOCATION MENU]
Available Destinations:
Storage Locker (Ref: LOC-ST/001)
Challenge Two — Passes Remaining: 5 (Ref: CH-002/DAILY)
School (Origin Node: LOC-OR/001)
Warning: Early withdrawal from timed trial detected.
Performance will be graded under “last to complete” clause.
Authorization required pursuant to Oversight Queue §5.7.
Proceed? [Yes / No]
His thumb hesitated a fraction longer than he meant it to. He thought of his father — his approval, his silence. The ache of both.
Then pressed
Light folded around him, the world tilting, dissolving into the dim of his locker. He changed out of his uniform—it wouldn’t do to show up with mud stains on his clothes. Then he checked on his night lilies. They were alive, but only just.
“Still not up to blooming,” he murmured, sliding his fingers over the stem and the tight bud. He’d created water from the core of the umbral shrike—dark water. He’d been sure it would work, but while it kept the plant alive, it had yet to bloom.
Once geared up he scoured his locker for the tools he needed, grabbing his notebook last. Trap under his arm, another flash took him to the path under twilight.
Rem stretched as he made his way to the alchemist’s wagon, dropping his trap outside as he ducked into the back.
“Hey, Arbrios,” he said, holding out three umbral cores. “Cheap rent for a lighted spot, just for the night?”
The wagon smelled of charred herbs and old parchment. Its low ceiling forced Rem to duck as he stepped inside, lanternlight glowing amber against shelves crammed with jars, scrolls, and crooked stacks of bone-white instruments. Every surface seemed stained: ink rings on wood, dark scorch marks where some experiment had boiled over. Dried roots dangled from twine overhead, brushing his hair when he passed.
Arbrios hunched at his counter, robes the color of soot and patched with candle-wax scars. Wisps of white hair curled from beneath a bent cap, his beard tangled and wild. His one good eye gleamed as he snatched the umbral cores from Rem with ink-stained fingers. He weighed them in his palm, turned one toward the lantern to admire its glow, then tossed all three into a pouch that jingled faintly with metal and glass.
“Mm. Shiny enough,” he muttered, cinching the pouch closed. “A fair toll for lamplight.”
Then, louder, with a rasping grin: “Ah, the young scholar returns. And what curious heresies shall you attempt tonight? Will you coax fire from mud, or distill gold from swamp-water?” His words carried the pomp of a man who lived in riddles, but his gaze glittered like a hawk’s, sharp and appraising.
Rem slid into the seat across from him, the worn bench creaking under his weight. He laid out his satchel on a scarred tabletop that smelled faintly of acid, the grain grooved from years of knife cuts and burns. His fingers itched with the old habit of sketching, and he pulled his notebook close.
Lanternlight pooled across his vials, glinting dark as ink in glass. Arbrios leaned forward, smoke and spice clinging to his robe. “Show me your madness, boy,” he murmured.
Rem’s mouth felt dry. He lifted a vial into the glow, shook it so the liquid sloshed thick and slow. “Still running into problems with the umbral water.”
He summoned the square. Power hummed faint in his chest as the black fluid thickened into a sphere, lanternlight painting its edges silver. His skin prickled, gooseflesh rising as he pressed his will against it. The result blinked back: still duplication.
He jotted it down, the skritch of his pen loud in the close quarters. The ink pooled too heavy at one curve of the letter, threatening to bleed. Arbrios’s slow breathing filled the silence.
[INSPECTION REPORT]
Item: Duplicating Dark Water (Level 1).
Rank: Uncommon (Ref: IT-RNK/UNC).
Traits: Self-replicating under agitation.
Compliance reference Item Registry §12.4.
“Duplicating Dark Water,” Arbrios breathed, eyes bright. “You do delight in conjuring oddities.”
“Level one,” Rembrandt whispered, then moved on through his collection.
“What’s the difference between level one water and level two water?” Rembrandt muttered, scrawling the question.
Arbrios barked a laugh, rummaging through a heap of scrolls. “Bah. Do they teach you nothing of essence at that academy of yours?”
The smack to the side of his head came before he could react.
“That is a level one scroll.” Arbrios held it up, then dug out another that looked identical.
The second smack rocked him back in surprise.
“And that is level three. What would you say the difference is?”
He rubbed his head, frowning at the pair. “The paper is denser? Heavier?”
“Close,” Arbrios said, settling back with a huff. “It is the essence, boy. The essence grows denser. The higher the weave, the richer the core. That is the difference between trinket and treasure.”
The words rooted in him. Denser. He felt it—weight behind power. Levels weren’t points on a board or tricks of light. They were substance. Compressed potential packed tighter with each step upward.
His pen scratched furiously, the strokes uneven where his hand trembled. Ink bled at the edge of a letter. For the first time, the Union’s race felt exposed for what it was: a sprint across the surface, skimming speed while depth waited beneath.
Essence, denser. Rembrandt scrawled it down, thought racing. If everything in a challenge scaled in essence density…
He glanced at Arbrios and quietly triggered Inspect.
[ASSESSMENT LOG — ENTITY SCAN]
Subject: Arbrios Al’Ravaan.
Classification: Human
Level: 5
Registry ID: NPC-ARB-03.
Compliance reference: Concordant Law §17.9.
Levels are a measure of your essence density.
The words struck harder than he expected. So levels weren’t arbitrary. They weren’t points on a chart or numbers to grind. They were weight, compressed into every scroll, every core, every person. Density, not illusion. His quill hovered above the page, a bead of ink fattening at the tip, heavy as the thought it carried. Then it scratched faster, frantic, trying to catch the idea before it slipped away.
Arbrios snorted, as if sensing it. “A rude trick, peering into a man’s measure without leave. In polite circles, such curiosity earns a duel.”
Rem stuffed his samples back into his satchel, muttered thanks, and slipped outside. He had used his domain openly before Arbrios, but merging was another matter. If the old man ever discovered that secret, it might mean trouble.
Settling on the path under the moonlight, he took out two slime cores. He’d tried merging the same items before; the result was always one of the same, a waste. But if his theory was right—
He placed the two cores into his merge domain. With a push of will, they pressed together, minute flashes sparking where they touched. The pull on his strength was lighter than before.
[INSPECTION REPORT]
Item: Slime Core.
Level: 1
Rank: Common (Ref: IT-RNK/COM).
Compliance reference Item Registry §12.8.
No change. He added another, then another. On the fourth, the result shifted.
[INSPECTION REPORT]
Item: Slime Core.
Level: 2
Rank: Common (Ref: IT-RNK/COM).
Compliance reference Item Registry §12.8.
Four to one.
He dropped the power, catching the denser core in his palm. He scrawled the result, calculating quickly, frowning. If merging always resulted in the lower level until a threshold… his stash was less useful than he hoped.
Still. He turned the core in his hand, watching it glint. His frown bent into the shadow of a smile. Not what he’d hoped, but enough. A path forward.
Attention, Citizens of the Union! Across the stars, the call to service echoes!
The brave, the bold, the unyielding—these hearts fuel the eternal frontier!
The Thrive Protocol thrives on essence.
- Every FOLLOW bolsters our ranks!
- Every RATING ignites the engines of victory!
- Every COMMENT echoes through the void, proving the Corps endures!
Forged by courage. By conviction.
Join the Star Corps today! Defend the tale! Uphold the Union! Claim your destiny—guardians of the endless stars!